Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Look I know I’ve never seen you before and honestly I probably seem pretty creepy at the moment but my father hates cats and if I don’t get someone to hold Aiko for the night she’ll follow me home anyway and my father will—but anyways will you take care of her just for tonight and then I’ll take her back tomorrow right here at three o’clock? I’m moving out then so it’ll be fine after that.”

“Um,” Midoriya stated. The other’s heterochromic eyes were oddly intense and it was a reflex when he replied, “Okay?”

“Thank you!” the man said, pushing the orange tabby cat into Midoriya’s arms, along with a couple cans of food and a cat toy. Then he ran off.

“Wait, what’s your name?”

“Todoroki!” he replied without pause.

“Nice to meet you,” Midoriya yelled at his retreating back.

. . . o0o . . .

“Does he have fleas?” Uraraka whispered conspiratorially, and Iida balked at the implications.

“Uraraka!” he shouted, though the rest of his comment was lost to a glitching camera.

“But Iida!” Uraraka whined. “You have to admit it’s a bit suspicious. Why did you even say you’d do it, Deku?”

“I didn’t mean to!” Midoriya insisted, shoulders slumped. “I just didn’t have time to think.”

“You’re always thinking,” Uraraka teased with a fond smile. Iida attempted to say something but he was still glitching in and out—but judging by the freeze frames of his outrageous positions, he was dedicated about it.

“Iida,” Uraraka called, then louder, “Iida! We can’t—IIDA! You’re glitching I can’t—oh there he goes,” she said with a sigh as his camera went dark. Uraraka’s screen stretched to accommodate the new open space and her bright smile lit up Midoriya’s screen.

“Was he cute?” Uraraka asked eagerly, leaning forwards. “Was that why you did it?”

“Uraraka!” Midoriya exclaimed, blushing.

“Oh come on,” she rejoined, rolling her eyes, “Iida isn’t here talk about morals and you are always thinking.”

“He wasn’t . . . unattractive,” Midoriya admitted, checks growing from a pale pink to a deep red, “but that’s not why I did it!”

“Okay,” Uraraka said disbelieving, “but more importantly—what did he look like?” 

“It’s not that! I promise!”

“I said okay!” Uraraka laughed. “But tell me—I’m curious! You wouldn’t leave such a pretty girl tormented with thoughts of hot men, would you?”

“You don’t exactly sound like your despairing,” Midoriya pointed out sardonically, and Uraraka laughed again. He thought back on the man, eyes too worried for a cat—even fearful—for Izuku to think of his father as anything other than cruel. A thought niggled at the back of his mind and he licked his lips. He slumped over, burying his face in his comfy All Might sweater.

“Half of his face was covered in scars,” Midoriya admitted softly, voice muffled through his arms. “The whole reason he wanted me to watch Aiko was so his dad wouldn’t hurt her, but he stopped himself before he could say what exactly he’d do.” He looked up. “I’m worried for him.”

“Hero complex,” Uraraka teased. “He told you he was going to move out tomorrow, right? So you don’t have to think too hard on it. No matter what his dad is like, they won’t be together for too much longer.”

“I guess,” Midoriya said unhappily. “I just—it’s not normal to be so scared of your dad.”

Uraraka frowned across the screen, worry alit in her eyes. She took in the huddled way Midriya was sitting and forced her bright smile into a gentle grin.

“It’ll be okay,” she promised. “I mean, he obviously cares about his cat, yeah? So you’ll see him tomorrow when he comes to pick her up.”

Midoriya nodded and in the process glanced at the time; he yelped.

“Uraraka! Your weight training was supposed to start—”

“Are you okay?” Uraraka asked, calm as can be.

“YES! Now go! Shoo, shoo. You’re practicing for U.A. college; you can’t afford to wait around and—”

“My friends will always be more important to me,” Uraraka said, but obediently waved and signed off. Midoriya sent off a quick text to Iida telling him not to worry about anything and to go practice if he had to. He respond with perfect grammar, well wishes, and a link on how to properly take care of a cat.

Midoriya clicked on a video with a bell and, pleased by the sound, Aiko jumped up to his lap. She purred loudly, like a tiny engine, stretching out and curling up for sleep, ignoring Midoriya’s hand or the laptop under it.

“Hello,” he said. She opened one eye as if to ask if he had anything meaningful to say. “You’re on my hand.”

The cat yawned and placed her head down, ignoring him.

Midoriya snickered, worry drifting away slightly. He reached down to scratch her head; she didn’t move but her purrs got even louder.

“You’re kinda cute.”

Like your owner, Midoriya thought unexpectedly, and immediately blamed it on Uraraka’s questions.

. . . o0o . . .

The next day came quickly, like someone had gotten tired of watching sand drip down the hourglass and smashed it open. Midoriya was early; he fidgeted and chewed his lip until he spotted Todoroki ten minutes later.

“Sorry about all this,” he said, guilty, though his smile turned gentle when he rubbed Aiko’s head. He grabbed his cat, apologized once again, and turned to go away—Midoriya’s nerves were shaking and jittery and didn’t want to accept such an anticlimactic ending.

“Do you want my number?” Midoriya burst out, then blushed brightly. “Ah, I mean—for Aiko! It’s not really safe to ask strangers to care for your cat and she’s really adorable and fluffy so if you ever need someone to watch her again—”

“I don’t think I’ll need anyone,” the man replied, eyes thoughtful.

“But what if you ever visit your dad?” Midoriya asked. The man snorted; Midoriya blinked at the unexpected unrefined action. He didn’t seem like the type.

“Definitely not,” he laughed. Midoriya swallowed, rejection curling in his throat, and nodded. “But I guess I can understand wondering about Aiko. She’s great. If you want you could come visit some time?”

“Sure!” Midoriya replied, entirely too eager. (In the back of his mind he heard Iida warning him of stranger danger and Uraraka urging him on.) His throat felt cleared away suddenly. Before he lost courage he added, “It’s a date!”

The other man drew back, checks pinking slightly, but undeniably pleased.

“Sure,” he replied smiling, “I’d like that.”

Chapter Text

“Close your eyes,” Izuku whispers to him, his breath faint against Shouto’s ear. Shouto obliges thoughtlessly, even though his hands are shaking and tears are starting to collect at the corner of his eyes and fall over when he blinks.

Shouto is walked out of Izuku’s room, away from the All Might figures and merchandise and towards the deck that to attaches every dorm. It’s barely five feet across but Shouto needs to feel Izuku holding him, needs to convince himself that Izuku isn’t going to

(the tea kettle is whistling it’s screaming his mother’s is screaming his face burns burns burns he hates it he hates the heat)

leave him alone and desperate. Shouto feels the breeze across his face and how the tears on his face feel freezing in the wind.

“Look up,” Izuku tells him, voice still soft. His hands are calloused but infinitely kind as they push Shouto’s chin back until he’s facing the sky. “Now open your eyes.”

He does, because he’s never been able to deny Izuku anything. His eyes are met with the sky—some of the stars are snuffed out from pollution or implosion (because that’s what stars do, after a while, only they reform) but he’s not sure what he’s supposed to be looking at.

He tries—he doesn’t speak for a long time and he’s trying to search for a meaning, for some deep founded belief about something he’s seeing that will make his father seem a little less bad. He can’t help but glance at Izuku then, scared a bit because this seemed important to him but Shouto couldn’t understand. Izuku just smiles, kind.

“When I was younger, I was—well, I wasn’t exactly popular. But I didn’t want my mom to worry, ya know? So every once in a while after everyone was asleep I’d sneak up to the roof with a blanket and just . . . stare. At the stars, the moon—anything really. I’d think about how stars form and how bright they shine even though they’re so far away.” He laughs a bit. “It’s dorky but I felt more alive when I did it.”

“I don’t,” Shouto stutters, because that’s great but it doesn’t make him feel better, and though he doesn’t want to seem like an idiot he doesn’t want to lie to Izuku more.

“The stars are always there,” Izuku says, reaching down and entwining their hands together. His hands are warm but not burning—it’s the type of heat that Shouto has never hated. “No matter what happens. No matter who changes or hurts you. Stars are burning bright and never give up. I wanted to be like that—a beacon of light who never gives up.”

“I think you succeeded,” Shouto says, lips twitching despite everything. He thinks back to their fight at the school festival—succeeded was definitely one word for it.

He blinks slowly, and when he opens them he thinks he can see what Izuku sees. Just a bit.

“They seem so indifferent,” Shouto muses.

“Well, there’s a type of comfort in that too, isn’t there?”

Shouto doesn’t answer. The stars are twinkling, beautiful; he remembers that stars are made of heat stronger than any fire and pushes down the involuntary rush of disgust. There’s no wondering here—not like there is with his father’s wrathful fire (with his mother’s unthinking actions).

“So you don’t need to be scared of your mother,” Izuku whispers. Shouto just stares and stares and stares at the stars that will never move. “It’s not—trust me, I get that you’re going to be scared no matter what; I’m always terrified of everything. But if she doesn’t like that we’re dating then—”

“The stars won’t change,” Shouo whispers back. A slight discomfort rings in the back of his mind and he can’t help but say, “but that’s not what I’m scared of. That’s what you worry about—homophobia and rejection and people not liking you.”

“Then why are you crying Shouto?” Izuku asks, completely confused but his words still so gentle. Shouto thinks of meteors and shooting stars that burn with too much heat for a human to ever touch.

“I’m scared that if she doesn’t like you I’ll have to choose between you both.”

“You won’t,” Midoriya promises. “She doesn’t want to lose you and neither do I. She might be confused but we can explain it to her. I promise—I’ll never ask you to choose.”

“But what if she does?” Shouto asks, because he loves his mother, truly, with all of his soul, but that doesn’t mean he never dreams of tea kettles and searing heat and bland hospitals and isolation.

He used to blame everything on his father—but Izuku’s words that inspired Shouto to use his quirk had also waved away some of his anger towards the man. It isn’t forgiveness—it isn’t forgetting—it isn’t even a hope to forgive one day. It’s just—

The knowledge that his father will never be sorry. Shouto’s worth more than anger at a man who doesn’t care.

Which is great, except when he thinks of his mother and flinches. A bit. Not much—she was a victim too. And she’s better now, away from her husband who she hates and her family who arranged the marriage.

Shouto is tired of being a victim. He wants to be a hero for once. So he breathes, closes his eyes, then opens them and studies the stars. Izuku may see them and think of pillars of strength and warmth, but Shouto has never had a good connection with fire and instead he sees something beyond his control, but more beautiful than it ever could be in his hands.

“Izuku,” Shouto says quietly, thinking, thinking, thinking. “Will you meet my mother tomorrow?”

“Whatever you want.” I love you.

He’s tired of thinking and worrying.

“I love you,” he says aloud, and Izuku’s eyes go wide, his hand claspses to his mouth—but his lips are quickly forming the largest smile Shouto’s ever seen. Then Izuku’s arms are wrapped around his shoulders and they’re twirling and Shouto’s laughing.

“I love you too!” Izuku shouts, entirely too loud—someone a floor up tells them to shut up but Shouto kisses Izuku and suddenly neither of them can hear anything but each other.

Chapter Text

“I wanted to make him proud of me,” Izuku admits, voice hoarse and broken like the buildings crumbling around him. “All For One—he was always so close, if I could just do one more thing then he would—would be proud of me. Just one more thing. Just one more victim, just one more kidnapping, just turn the other cheek one more time. Just—fuck! ”

“Can’t say I relate,” Shouto responds, voice dry, eyes not. The city is crumbling around them but everyone’s evacuated—except for the man in front of him. They’re the only two left in a fifty mile radius but it still feels like everyone is staring.

“Really?” Izuku asks, and his voice is soft yet not broken; it’s a bit sardonic and his laugh comes out bitter. “Do you believe that?”

Shouto thinks of white hair, of whistling kettle pots, of how it was always his fault, his father’s fault, but never the fault of the one who actually burned him. He thinks of the tears he shed in guilt for causing his mother’s anguish.

(Did she ever cry for hurting him? Did she ever cry for having him?)

“No,” Shouto answers, simply. It’s the first time he’s ever admitted it. He swallows. “Izuku, we need to get out of here—”

“You need to leave,” Izuku corrects. He waves an arm around and grabs a chunk of cement off a building—Shouto leaps forward to pull him away as the building collapses and the dust flies into his eyes and blinds him.

“. . . You really are a hero,” Izuku mutters, voice muddled, and Shouto realizes he had shielded him by pushing Izuku into his chest.

Shouto had never actually touched him before—Izuku feels small, lithe, but dense with muscle—his heart beats in his chest—but it’s not because of proximity.

Izuku was smart. Incredibly smart, stupidly smart, to the point where he saw through All For One’s tricks by himself. He knew the building would tumble over.

But he hadn’t tried to back away.

“You always protect me,” Izuku says, voice sad.

“Come with me,” Shouto begs, eyes pleading. “The teachers at U.A. are smart—they’ll know you were coerced into doing this. I can protect you!”

“I don’t deserve protection!” Izuku burst out, yanking himself out of Shouto’s arms. Shouto grabs onto his wrist anyway. “I’ve hurt so many people—"

“If it wasn’t for you I’d be dead! I’d be frozen to the ground somewhere, Izuku! Dead! You saved me . . . let me save you.” His voice is pleading, and his father would think it was pathetic, but Shouto wasn’t thinking of that.

Izuku shakes his head, silent, eyes wet but not crying. Shouto’s heart falls.

“You told me once you wanted to be a hero,” Shouto whispers hoarsely. “You—"

“Shouto,” Midoriya says, eyes squeezed shut, but he can’t hide the cracks in his voice. “I sent the location of the villain headquarters to your school email.”

“Wha—That’s great! Izuku that just shows--"

“NO! Don’t you get it? I betrayed All For One. I always tried but it was never enough for him and I gave up, Shouto! He’ll kill me! He’ll kill anyone I know! He already killed—”

There’s a loud rumbling as a building five blocks away collapses and Shouto can feel the vibrations in his feet. Momo’s voice crinckles over the intercom, angry and worried, yelling at him to get out of there. He covers it in ice and throws it away. At some point Izuku had slipped away.

“Just one more,” Izuku echoes hollowly, with the air of a mantra. He breathes. “Just one more death.”

There are only two people here. Izuku isn’t talking about Shouto.

“Two,” Shouto blurts out. Izuku’s head snaps up, eyes worried but more alive than they’ve been this entire conversation. “If you don’t leave—“ his hands curl at his sides, “I wouldn’t be a hero without you, I’d still be stuck up and refuse to see my power as my own. I’m not going to let you die, Izuku, I—it won’t be one.”

“Shouto—

“Come with me,” Shouto begs again, voice desperate. “Neither of us have to do this. You’ve never wanted to hurt people! You reminded me what a hero was and—“ he reaches his hand out, an olive branch, a plead, “and I want to return the favor. Izuku, you can still be a hero!”

“I can’t,” Izuku says, somewhere between a sob and a laugh, but he takes Shouto’s hand, “But I don’t have to kill anyone else either.”

“Not even yourself,” Shouto adds quickly.

“I guess,” Izuku says; Shotuo frowns but Izuku just smiles. “Guess it’s time to get rescued, huh?”

“It’s time to rewrite the story,” Shouto says, and maybe there’s a metaphor in that—in a villain who refused to kill and a hero who was inspired by him. Shouto doesn’t know. All he knows is Izuku felt nice in his arms and with his heart still beating—

Shouto vows, silently, to devote the rest of his life to making sure Izuku lives the way a hero should.

Chapter Text

Somehow, through some large amount of miscommunication and assumptions, the students of class 1-dA believed Todoroki Shouto was some type of do-it-yourself god, and that he could do any handyman project effortlessly.

“You changed the entire layout of your room in a day without making any noise,” Mina told him when he mentioned his confusion to Izuku, easily sliding into the conversation like she had been born to have it. “Honestly, I don’t know how your family hasn’t taken advantage of it. I mean, hellooo?”

“I was tired afterwards,” Todoroki insisted, letting the comment about his family wash over him. It didn’t quite work—it got stuck somewhere in the air around him, not a furious inferno but an overly annoying wasp.

Mina threw back her head and laughed, leaving Todoroki to deal with the sudden crawling on the back of his neck that made him feel like he had done something wrong. Midoriya pulled at the corner of his sleeve, his grip sturdy but the actual tug light. Todoroki glanced towards him, still thinking of Mina’s laughter.

“It’s still really impressive, Todoroki," Midoriya insisted, apparently missing Todoroki’s point. “Paid professionals could use more time than you did.”

Todoroki doubted that, but Iida had arrived and with several robotic jerks of his arm, ordered everyone to their seats like a soldier ordering his troops. Bakugou bit out some angry comment that Todoroki didn’t bother remembering as he glided towards his seat.

. . . o0o . . .

“Midoriya,” Todoroki called, pulling him from his analysis of a fight from a new hero name Seraphi. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“. . . Just follow me.”

“Is everything okay?” Midoriya questioned, worry settling into his stomach. He quickly jumped up from his desk chair. He didn’t activate his quirk, but only because Todoroki wouldn’t meet his eyes and the quiet way he was speaking mean he didn’t want others to see them.

“Just . . . follow me.”

. . . o0o . . .

“That’s—something,” Midoriya settled on, deeming it the least offensive thing he could say. Todoroki coughed slightly and looked to the side.

The washing machine had been utterly buried in bubbles: the soapy, frothing mess of translucent soap climbed halfway up the ceiling and clung to the walls. The clothes themselves were drenched, and Midoriya spotted one of his All Might shirts a shade of pink when yesterday it had been white. And that was . . . a whole different issue than the bubbles.  

“I—thought,” he began, then abruptly cut off. Todoroki wasn’t still meeting his eyes, and Midoriya was astonished to notice the bright red on his left cheek.

He must be using his ice powers to keep from blushing on his left, Midoriya realized, but the thought was far away, distant, because obviously the most important thing here wasn’t the overflowing bubbles or quirks or even pink All Might shirts; it was the sudden rush of affection and exhilarated fondness Midoriya felt, even as Todoroki set his eyes on the ceiling (the part that didn’t have bubbles) and refused to look anywhere else.

“How do you,” Todoroki began, then swallowed, “um . . . fix this?”

Midoriya had trouble answering; Todoroki’s uncharacteristic embarrassment and selfconsciousness was making his heart palpitate. Todoroki took his silence a different way. Midoriya saw the frustration curl in his eyes before he opened his mouth, and not thinking, not even breathing really (something about the hilarious scene had torn the breath right out of his lungs), asked before Todoroki could get a word in,

“Will you go on a date with me?”

“Huh?”

“Agh! I—uh, ignore me! I got caught up in the moment—though I guess it wasn’t really a moment? But it felt like a moment, to me at least, you probably didn’t feel anything but I—”

“I mean, I will go on a date with you. I—I’d really like that, actually. But I don’t know how that will fix this?” 

Midoriya looked up, astonished, then a loud burst of laughter rang through the room.

Chapter Text

“I don’t use my fire side,” Todoroki commented, and Midoriya breathed through his mouth, walked over, and punched him in the face.

. . . o0o . . .

His boss forced him to buy flowers as an apology gift, which were nice, but Midoriya was still reeling from the animosity he felt so he tore all of them off except one. It was one of those fancy flowers that were grown with dye so they blossomed with two colors.

The flower was a rose, and half of it was the normal dark red that was so romanticized, but the other was a pure white that resembled snow. It wasn’t perfect—there was a single red petal on the white side—but the resemblance was uncanny and the meaning behind it impossible to ignore.

Midoriya had planted it himself, though he hadn’t expected to use it for such a reason. Todoroki took one look at it and covered it entirely in ice.

. . . o0o . . .

The next day Midoriya brought in another rose, and placed it on Todoroki’s desk without a word.

At the end of the day it’s covered in ice, put in a pretty glass vase, and placed next to Midoriya’s laptop.

. . . o0o . . .

He brought in another rose. It was returned with frost.

. . . o0o . . .

The next rose got more creative—Midoriya painted the pot half red and white, used red multch on one side and covered the other side in sand.

In turn, it was replaced as an ice sculpture, the words “fuck off” shaved into the side of it like it was some beautiful design.

. . . o0o . . .

Midoriya does not fuck off. The next day he brings three roses.

. . . o0o . . .

He runs out of roses then, at least home grown ones, and resorts to using red roses and white roses.

“Aren’t red roses supposed to be romantic?” Uraraka mentions. Midoriya is too worried about making the colored roses stay on their specified side to hear.

. . . o0o . . .

“What do I have to do to make you stop?” Todoroki asks, face blank but the air turned chilly when he walked in the room. His eyes look furious.

Oh, thank god, Midoriya thinks. He had been losing a lot of money on the roses.

“Use your fire,” Midoriya says relentlessly. For all the anger in Todoroki, Midoriya tops it all with his determination and pure spite.

“No,” Todoroki responds. Midoriya narrows his eyes slightly.

“Then I won’t stop.”

Todoroki stomps away.

. . . o0o . . .

Another week passes and Midoriya buys a coolor to melt the ice in. Todoroki’s taken to carving creative insults in the ice he returns, so Midoriya buys cards (red on the outside but white inside) to reply.

One day the sculpture asks to meet him outside. Midoriya responds with a generic ok and also a picture of a fire.

“Will you use your fire?” Midoriya asks as a greeting.

“No,” Todoroki answers, “I will not use my father’s fire.”

The story comes out then—about how his father and mother married because of quirks, how his father trained him like a mule and his mother tried to alleviate the pressure, tried to take the pressure away, only to crack under it herself. Todoroki’s scar is a testament of how terrible it was.

“I don’t like talking about this,” Todoroki admits, “but I am. So will you stop your stupid mission now?”

Midoriya hesitates—his heart is breaking in his chest from the other’s story but the tears are gathering in the corner of his eyes because of how nonchalant Todoroki is as he tells it, how emotionless he tries to seem towards to whole thing—but he steels himself. He breathes.

“No,” he says. This time Todoroki is the one to punch him in the face.

. . . o0o . . .

Somewhere between the adrenaline and sweat and punches and kicks, Midoriya thinks it probably wasn’t the best idea to piss someone off with such a strong quirk when he himself was quirkless.

He hurts himself more than Todoroki when he kicks at the other’s ice, twirling and jumping to escape the other’s crystalized dagger, but he grabs the pepper spray he’s allowed to have as a quirkless and sprays the other so the liquid condenses on his freezing skin.

“It’s your power!” Midoriya screams, thoughtless in his anger because—

Because Midorya would do anything for a quirk. He had always wanted to be a hero, eyes bright with hope; to fit in with Kacchan with his flashy explosions and devil-may-care attitude; for all the relentless bullying and mockery to stop following him for just one second. He wanted to stop having to say he ‘fell’ and for his mother not to have to grow increasingly worried and uncomfortable as her son came home with bigger and bigger bruises.

But here was Todoroki, blessed with a quirk that he refused to see as his own, didn’t want to see it as anything more than an extension of his parents. Everyone always put in their best and pushed themselves harder than yesterday and went further to catch onto their dreams. Uraraka, Iida, even (especially) Bakugou—they all demanded more of themselves than possible and refused to be stopped.

But here was Todoroki, haunted by his past or maybe haunting his past himself, like a spirit who couldn’t move on, who not only didn’t try his hardest but refused to.

Something gets through, something in Todoroki’s eyes spark to life, but Midoriya doesn’t have time to take advantage of the distraction before the alley is covered in a loud burst of fire.

It crackles and burn and towers, larger than life and certainly larger than the building next to them, and even the knowledge that he probably just provoked someone into murdering him can’t stop the large grin from spreading across Izuku’s lips.

“What are you smiling for?” Todoroki screams, because he has to be in order to be heard over the loud cracking and sizzling the flames are causing. His words aren’t angry—there’s something pulling at his mouth that makes Midoriya want to call him a hypocrite—but then Todoroki pulls back his arms, winding up, and Midoriya lift his pepper spray—

(the chemicals will react and cause more fire if I can control it then i)

All Might steps deftly between them but a loud crack is the last thing he hears before Midoriya is a goner.

(Ah right—when cold air heats up really quickly--)

Boom.

. . . o0o . . .

The next week Midoriya is back behind his desks, meekly rubbing the back of his neck as Iida chastises him, when he notices the rose. It’s pure red, but the card attached is white. As soon as Iida leaves, Midoriya tries to convince himself he isn’t ripping it open.

sorry about losing control but also thank you

do you want to meet this friday for dinner?

And then on the back:

the florist said they were out of white roses. i wonder why?

. . . o0o . . .

Todoroki opens the red and white card in amusement, different from the flames of anger the fancy lettering would have caused just last week.

Sure! :)  Don’t be sorry about the flames—I hurt myself more than anything else! Are you okay? I heard you had to get checked out for frostbite!?

p.s. no clue about the white roses :P

He chuckles light to himself.

Friday can’t come quick enough.